


Got to Keep Dancing When the Lights Go Out

by stvrmxra



Series: Bokuaka Week 2020 [10]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: AU, Angst, BokuAka Week, BokuAka Week 2020, Bokuaka - Freeform, Guardian Angel, Hurt/Comfort (?), Like just angst, M/M, angst and hurt (no comfort), bokuaka au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:34:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25996822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stvrmxra/pseuds/stvrmxra
Summary: Akaashi and Bokuto’s souls are tied together; that means it’s not possible for Akaashi to lose Bokuto in a crowd, but he can simply lose sight of him quite easily. It doesn’t matter, as long as-Looking out over the crowd, Akaashi meets a pair of eyes. It was completely a coincidence, their gazes just happened to meet as a group of people split apart, but that wasn’t what threw him off.What threw him off is that those are the yellow eyes of the sun that he’s seen for many years; and they’re fixated on him.----day 10 prompt: free day
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Series: Bokuaka Week 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1858477
Comments: 10
Kudos: 97
Collections: Bokuaka Week 2020





	1. Everyone Falls, Everybody Dreams and Doubts

**Author's Note:**

> this is a week late but I'm still calling it day 10 of Bokuaka Week 2020. thank you guys so much for reading all these and enjoying them, it makes me so happy to see people giving kudos and commenting. I hope you guys like this one ;)
> 
> title is from _Everyday Life_ by Coldplay!!
> 
> enjoy!

The first time Akaashi saved him, Bokuto was four years old. 

Tokyo has always been a very busy city, constantly bustling with people walking to work, school, or home. This particular day, people lined the sidewalks and cars filled the streets, winter break and a prime shopping season finally upon them. 

Bokuto and his mother held hands as they walked alongside the buildings, and the woman smiled and nodded every time her son pointed out a cool and exciting-looking toy in a store window. The air was cold around them, the chilly breezes scratching through their jackets and biting their skin, but their entwined hands were warm inside their mittens. 

A group of people had just crossed the street when the walk sign turned red, so Bokuto and his mom had to stop and wait for the cycle to restart. They stood there for a moment, a couple of people stopping behind them to wait and cross the street as well. 

A friend of Bokuto’s mother came up to her to say hello, so she smiled and turned half a step away from her son. Bokuto didn’t pay any mind, he just continued to curiously look around at the gigantic skyscrapers that pushed through the gray clouds. 

It was beginning to snow, a couple of miniscule white fluffs of ice falling from the sky and landing on Bokuto’s yellow coat. He looked up at the bleak clouds the color of concrete, golden eyes alight with wonder and awe, and Akaashi remembers that this was the first time the boy had ever seen snow. 

His eyes caught a particularly big flurry a couple of feet away, and he watched as it slowly spun and danced through the air. As the snowflake lowered to a height where Bokuto could grab it, he let go of his mother’s hand and stepped onto the street. 

Akaashi was already at Bokuto’s side when the car turned right, the driver not expecting to see a child in the street directly around the corner. He pulled Bokuto calmly back onto the curb by his shoulders just as the car sped along, Akaashi’s touch as light as the snowflakes landing on the child’s coat. 

On the sidewalk next to his mom again, Bokuto turned around to see what had pulled him back, only to find no one there. His eyebrows furrowed and he turned back to the sky, watching the sparkling snow like nothing had happened. 

-

The second time Akaashi saved Bokuto, he was seven years old. 

Flu season in Japan had started, and thousands of people were getting sick. Bokuto had caught it from some kid that coughed on him at school, so he was stuck at home for a few days until he recovered. 

His common flu turned into pneumonia after less than a week, and not long after he contracted it, Bokuto was hospitalized. The fluid in his lungs made it hard for him to breathe, so he spent days lying in a hospital bed struggling to find air. 

Akaashi watched hundreds of coughing fits, the child’s face straining from pale to red to purple every couple of minutes. Tears like glass streamed down the boy's skin, cutting through the hollowness of his eyes and cheeks caused by fever and lack of sleep. 

On the fifth day, Bokuto’s body had enough. The phlegm in his throat was too thick and his airways were too swollen, and the little air in his lungs just couldn’t escape. 

Akaashi watched from a few feet away as nurses and doctors scrambled for a defibrillator to start his heart again, and he could _feel_ the devastation and fear through the shrill screams of Bokuto’s mother. He only looked on, placidly, as they hooked up the machine to the boy’s chest and sent an electric shock into his body. 

Standing unknown behind the footboard of the bed, Akaashi became the air in Bokuto’s lungs. He broke through his blocked airways and spread oxygen into his blood, Bokuto’s chest filling with air and his heart beating once again. 

The golden eyes of the child had snapped open, his pupils dilating in the harsh light of the ICU. He pulled his head up, meeting the frightened and relieved faces of the hospital staff and the woman who thought she lost her only son. 

Bokuto’s mother pulled him into a gentle, but fierce, hug, her tears creating wet spots on his gray hospital gown. His arms wrapped around her neck weakly in response, and his eyes travelled around the group of people surrounding him in awe. 

To everyone else, there was no one standing behind the footboard of the bed; but Akaashi saw Bokuto’s gaze loiter a split second longer on that spot where he stood, and he knew that he had caught Bokuto’s eye.

Akaashi smiled. 

-

The next time, Akaashi saved Bokuto in more than one way.

There had been reports on the news about rumors of an earthquake hitting Japan. Everyone, including a sixteen year-old Bokuto, brushed off the threats; earthquakes were not uncommon, as Japan lies on the conjunction of two tectonic plates that shift constantly. That was nothing they’d never seen before.

They were gravely mistaken. 

Not only was the earthquake at a raging nine-point-zero magnitude, which destroyed the city and either killed or injured thousands of people, but it was worse than that. 

The tsunami seemingly came out of nowhere, surprising experts and civilians alike. Some places had been warned, and others weren’t so fortunate; but either way, everywhere had received massive devastation. 

Bokuto had been at his best friend Kuroo’s house when the earth shook, and the boys looked to each other with wide eyes before throwing their video game controllers down and rushing to the nearest doorway. Kuroo’s parents ran to them and held them tightly against the support beam of the house, and they only let go when glass stopped shattering and the walls stopped tremoring. 

It was when they walked outside that they saw exactly how _bad_ the destruction was, and the panic finally set in. Immediately Bokuto’s thoughts flew to his mother, who was home alone and had no idea if he was safe or not. 

He hugged Kuroo and frantically wished for his family's safety before he ran to his house two blocks away, not daring to stop for even a second to rest or look at the people crying for help. Throwing the door to his house open, Bokuto gasped as he saw his mom lying in a heap on the floor, her body surrounded by fragments of glass and their wooden dining table that was crushed by a light fixture.

 _“Mom! Mom, wake up!”_ he screamed, tears streaming down his face in raw and utter fear. He brushed her matted hair away from her face, blood making the black of her hair shine in the flickering lights. 

He continued to sob, crying out in terror until his mom made a small movement with her hand. Her eyelids blinked open slowly, and she brushed her fingers along her son’s arm until he stopped and looked at her. 

_“I’m here, baby,”_ she said, voice silky and calming despite the chaos of the situation they were in. _“I’m alright.”_

That’s when the sirens started. 

Both pairs of golden eyes widened even bigger, and Bokuto scrambled to his feet and carefully lifted his mom to hers. Now he could see the big gash in the side of her head, the source of the blood dripping down her cheek and onto her favorite white blouse. 

She held a hand to her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut until she could see straight, then she hobbled into the hallway as fast as she could with Bokuto supporting her weight. Her son pulled the string and brought down the latter to the attic, sending his mom up first before ascending after her. 

They opened a hatch and climbed onto the roof, and their hearts stopped at the scene in front of them. 

The houses all around them were destroyed in one way or another; some had caved in, others were on fire, and many had cracks in the sides. Besides the houses themselves, people ran through the streets and huddled in small groups, either searching for someone or holding their loved ones tightly. People sat on the roofs of the houses still standing, everyone’s eyes glued to the most horrible piece of the painting. 

The sirens blared in their ears as the giant wave in the distance grew closer, freezing the blood in Bokuto’s veins. It was horrifying, the way they could only watch as the ocean devoured the land and slithered nearer and nearer until it took residence inside their home. 

Akaashi sat with them through the chaos of water destroying their house below them, his presence bringing protection to the mother and her son. They didn’t know, but the water was shifting the already damaged supports of the house, and in a few minutes, the house would have collapsed into the ocean. 

He never left their sides, and though they couldn’t see him, he didn’t stray as he used his strength to fortify the house against the forceful waves. 

Bokuto and his mother sat at the highest point of their roof, and they closed their eyes with their heads pressed together so they didn’t have to see their friends and neighbors on the ground being swept away. It was eerily silent, the water drowning out the screams in the air. It stayed that way for hours, the afternoon sun burning relentlessly as if they hadn’t been through enough already. 

It was nearly nightfall when Bokuto looked up to see a search and rescue boat floating their way, the people with bright orange life jackets pulling the families stranded on their roofs into the raft. Many boats were scattered throughout the wreckage, bringing people to the buildings where the water didn’t touch. 

They reached Bokuto after a few minutes of patiently waiting, and they carefully took Bokuto’s injured mom into the raft. Only when Bokuto himself sat in the boat, looking up at the sky, did he thank whoever was up there for keeping them safe. 

The hospital was hectic and full, and they treated Bokuto’s mother quickly and efficiently. A nurse told him she had a concussion, and that she’s extremely lucky and just has to lie down for a few days. That thought weighed on him well through the night, until he couldn’t handle standing inside any longer and hiked up to the roof. 

The sky was almost mockingly beautiful, the stars luminous and taunting. A full moon lit up the infinite black darkness, illuminating the waves a few meters away and whatever abhorrences lied below them.

His mother was hurt, and there was nothing he could do. If he had been home, instead of going to Kuroo’s house, he could have saved her from harm. He could have been there. 

The thought _“why couldn’t it have been me?”_ was a mantra running through his head, and he grabbed fistfuls of his bicolored hair and pulled. He wanted it to stop; the guilt, the anxiety, the dread of finding out who made it and who didn’t. It was all too much. 

Akaashi, who hadn’t left his side once through the events of the whole day, could hear the cry for help in Bokuto’s heart and soul. That’s when he stepped close to the boy and hugged him from behind, spreading warmth, hope, and the will to keep fighting through his touch. 

A warm feeling overtook Bokuto’s senses. He felt immense comfort and love, and he didn’t understand why he suddenly wanted to _live._ Then, the beautiful young face of his mother popped into his mind, and he took a second to breathe.

Bokuto softened his grip on the side of the brick wall and exhaled slowly, a silent tear falling from his left eye. He looked up at the stars again, using the ounce of willpower he had left to calm himself down. 

_“Thank you,”_ he said to no one, his eyes that rival the sun brighter than the stars he admired through tired eyes.

 _“You’re welcome,”_ Akaashi said back, and he watched Bokuto shiver in response to the words he couldn’t hear. 

Akaashi didn’t need Bokuto’s thanks; it is his job to protect him, of course, as he’s Bokuto’s guardian angel. 

But now, years after that moment, Akaashi doesn’t know if he feels an obligation to protect Bokuto because it’s his job, or because there’s some _other_ type of feeling burning inside his heart. A dangerous one that could only lead to heartbreak. 

And he’s not sure he wants to find out which it is.


	2. Everyone Loves, Everybody Gets Their Hearts Ripped Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this part is so long omg. but i think this is the best one yet in terms of detail and how many ideas me and my friends came up with. 
> 
> i seriously hope you guys like this a lot. thank you for your support!

From then on, eight years after the worst day of his life, Bokuto hasn’t needed to be saved much.

He took a few minor injuries from playing extensive volleyball, and Akaashi healed those “remarkably quickly” as the doctors put it. There were also a couple of just overall _not-_ smart decisions that Akaashi stopped from leading to any harm; but overall, nothing has changed much since the tsunami. 

The days lately have been cold, winter upon them and hitting in full force. It’s the end of December and the sky is gray and bleak, the promise of snow in the forecast causing people to stay inside and off the streets. 

Some people, though, like Bokuto and his teammate Konoha, decide to enjoy their break from volleyball by taking a walk through the more rural streets of Tokyo. They talk between themselves, their breaths white as laughs escape their chapped lips. 

“They’re coming to the shrine.”

Akaashi looks to his fellow angel beside him, then turns back to Bokuto and his friend. The two walk along the sidewalk, hands in their coat pockets and their cheeks red from the slight chill of the each breeze that passes them. 

“It’s too cold,” Akaashi says, his tone fond. “They’re crazy for being out in this weather.”

Again, Akaashi glances to the boy directly at his left. Kuroo gazes at the teens—really, at Bokuto—with a deep sadness rooted in affectionate memories and love. He catches Kuroo with this look often, and each time, Akaashi looks away and remains silent, allowing the boy to grieve by himself. He understands.

The wind nips at the skin of the two living boys walking up a hill, the two watching unaffected. Darkness creeps up on them as the sun starts to set behind the thick sheet of clouds, people walking the opposite direction of them on their ways home for the night.

Despite the time and weather conditions, the shrine is still a pretty busy place, with people coming from many different areas to pray and give respects. Angels receive strength at holy sites like these, and Akaashi feels his connection to the spiritual world intensify as they cross onto divine lands. 

Akaashi and Kuroo stand amongst the crowd, watching Bokuto from afar. With their auras enhanced, they have to keep a bigger distance so Bokuto can’t feel their presence. 

The angels wait next to a bench with people sitting on it, the people not able to see them. Bokuto’s two-colored hair becomes lost in the crowd after a moment, but the boys remain standing a length away. 

Akaashi and Bokuto’s souls are tied together; that means it’s not possible for Akaashi to lose Bokuto in a crowd, but he _can_ simply lose sight of him quite easily. It doesn’t matter, as long as-

Looking out over the crowd, Akaashi meets a pair of eyes. It was completely a coincidence, their gazes just happened to meet as a group of people split apart, but that wasn’t what threw him off. 

What threw him off is that those are the yellow eyes of the sun that he’s seen for many years; and they’re fixated on _him._

A man walks between them then, and immediately, ignoring how badly he wants those starlit eyes on himself again, Akaashi disappears. He must have let his guard down with the space he had put between him and Bokuto, because he wasn’t supposed to let himself be seen like that. Kuroo is not strong enough to be seen yet, his spirit still too young, so he has nothing to worry about as his eyes rest on his former best friend.

Meanwhile, throughout the rest of his trip to the shrine, Bokuto’s thoughts are consumed by dark curly hair and fair pearly skin and shadowed eyes. Not only was he thinking about the attractiveness of the mysterious man that was there one second and gone the next, but the air of familiarity he held, even from as far as he was. 

With only a glimpse, Bokuto felt warmth blossom from his heart and down his body. His skin is suddenly hot, and with how cold it is, that should be impossible.

He’s seen that man before. He’s sure of it. 

That time he was pulled from the crosswalk, when he felt the warm hands on his shoulders pull him back, Bokuto turned around and caught a glimpse of dark hair and loving eyes before he wasn’t there anymore. 

The time he had died in the hospital, he had seen that man standing directly in front of him with a smile on his face. 

In the tsunami and even later that night, the comforting warmth that had enveloped him from behind through those long and terrifying hours is what he felt when he met eyes with the stranger. 

Thoughts run through Bokuto’s mind irrationally, but none of them are comprehensible. All he knows is he needs to chase this feeling in his heart that says the man he saw is important to him. 

“Let’s get out of here before we freeze to death,” Konoha says with a grin, pulling Bokuto from his stupor. 

Unable to shake the feeling that he needs to see this man again, Bokuto turns to Konoha. “I think I’m going to stay here for a bit longer,” he says. “You go on without me.”

Konoha raises an eyebrow and shivers, looking at Bokuto skeptically. In reassurance, Bokuto smiles. 

“Fine, I guess. Just don’t stay out here too long.” 

“I won’t, I promise.”

Konoha shakes his head in disbelief and turns, starting his trip down the hill back to the train station. Bokuto yells “See you tomorrow!” to which Konoha raises a hand over his shoulder at and continues walking. 

Turning around, Bokuto scans the crowd for the attractive man with the familiar face. The man isn’t there, though, so he sits on the metal bench behind him and waits for the crowd to thin. 

One by one the visitors leave, and Bokuto’s eyes flit to every one of them. His skin is hot, almost _too_ hot to be natural, so the cold doesn’t bother him as he waits. He sits until there’s only a few people left, but to his dismay, none of them have the bright aura and intimate face of the person he searches for. 

Bokuto waits a few minutes after the last couple leaves, and with a heavy sigh, he stands to his feet. Burrowing his chin into his coat, Bokuto shoves his hands into his pockets and starts his way back home. 

He only walks a few feet away before he stops in his tracks, a frown overtaking his features. The right side of Bokuto’s vision is suddenly a bright yellow, and he realizes what—or rather, who—it is before he lifts his chin up.

The man he’s been looking for all night stands there, his eyes widening a fraction when Bokuto looks at him. 

A haze of light shrouds his lean frame, and Bokuto doesn’t have the slightest idea how. His arms are bare, and Bokuto’s brain can’t comprehend the clothes he’s wearing. It’s like there’s a barrier over his eyes, and he can’t focus on the man’s body for too long or his vision will strain. 

He looks up to his face instead, and Bokuto’s breath fans out white when he exhales. The man—now that Bokuto can see him clearly, he has a youth to his face that makes him look more like a boy—has black hair that curls over his pale porcelain cheeks and sharp features that give him a unique elegance. His skin seems to glow, a luminous aura like a layer of second skin encompassing him. 

Finally, with a real chance to do so, Bokuto meets his eyes and studies them. With the light catching in his irises, Bokuto finds the most alluring deep sea green he’s ever seen. Even from their distance, swirls of sky blue and emerald green glow glittering and vivid in his considering gaze.

The only word that comes to Bokuto’s mind when he examines him is _beautiful._

Silence reigns over them, and when Bokuto sniffs, it’s inaudible. The man tilts his head to the side, and Bokuto labels his look as concern. 

“We know each other,” Bokuto says, and the boy's gaze flicks to the ground. “Don’t we?” 

The other boy sighs, and there’s no puff of air that there normally would be with this temperature. Bokuto doesn’t let his confusion show, but his mind is overflowing with questions. 

“We used to, a long time ago,” the man says, his voice soft and harmonic. The sound brings a shiver to Bokuto’s spine, though he still can’t feel the cold. His eyebrows furrow. 

“I’ve seen you before,” Bokuto says, taking a step closer to the man, though it only makes him seem further away. “I recognize your face.”

“We used to be friends, many years ago,” he replies, a fond and gentle smile shifting his lips up. “but that was a different time. Another life, you could say.”

A feeling nags at Bokuto’s heart; that feeling of familiarity he felt when he first saw the man, like there’s a deeply rooted bond pulling them together. He takes another step closer, and feels two things: a cord between their spirits pulling taut, and the warmth of his skin spike. 

Bokuto’s eyes go wide in realization. This heat, the soothing presence and light movements; it’s so familiar because he’s felt this his whole life, it’s just never been this strong. 

The dots connect, and Bokuto’s lips part. 

“Are you a spirit?”

The breath Akaashi had been holding escapes the second those words leave Bokuto’s mouth. _This is not good._

“If I tell you anything else,” Akaashi says, his fear of the rules burning his heart, “we can never see each other again.”

Akaashi has been Bokuto’s guardian for a very long time. He knows the type of person Bokuto is; every aspect of his personality, every single little quirk he has, Akaashi is aware of. Akaashi knows how stubborn he is, and how when he wants something, he’ll never stop trying to get it. 

So when Bokuto whispers “I need to know”, his voice carried by the wind, Akaashi isn’t surprised in the slightest. 

He also knows not to argue with him once he’s made up his mind. 

“I’m your protector,” Akaashi says, Bokuto’s eyes snapping to him, and _oh, it feels so good to have those golden eyes on him again._

“Like, an angel?” Bokuto asks, stepping toward him yet again. Akaashi still, after hundreds of years, craves Bokuto’s touch, and he longs to hold his body tight against him. 

Bokuto doesn’t take another step closer, and Akaashi knows that their proximity is probably burning him. There’s a divide between Angels and Humans, and the latter can’t get too close without being harmed by the divine fire. 

“I’m your guardian angel,” he says, and his eyes fall to Bokuto’s hands that shake at his sides. “I’ve been with you for many lifetimes.” 

“You said we used to know each other,” Bokuto murmurs, his eyebrows furrowed and his gaze on the ground between them. “If I’ve never met you before, then how…?”

This situation can’t get any worse, so Akaashi decides to tell him of their shared past. For the first time during their dangerous encounter, Akaashi approaches Bokuto. 

He flinches, and Akaashi’s heart pangs, but he continues the short few steps until they stand closer than Akaashi’s been to another human in a long time. Sweat beads on Bokuto’s forehead, but he hides his discomfort as he stares into Akaashi’s cerulean eyes. 

Hands lifting to frame Bokuto’s head, Akaashi closes his eyes. Through their connected souls, he slips himself into Bokuto’s mind and lifts the block placed on his memories. 

Bokuto’s eyes widen and his shoulders straighten, and Akaashi backs away to return the space he had taken. 

First, they’re just flashes. Two little boys, running through the dirt streets of a village, laughing. The same boys sitting under a tree in the forest, years older. The dark water of a river, and then only one boy. 

Those images materialize, and Bokuto can suddenly see the whole picture being painted in front of him. 

They had been best friends since childhood, and that created a special bond that made them inseparable. They were 17 when they went to the nearby river to collect water for their families, when a storm rolled in. They decided to push it, running the rest of the way to the river to get their water before the storm.

By the time they arrived, the rain was falling pretty hard, the drops stinging where they landed on their skin. They filled the buckets, but when the dark haired boy tried to step off of the riverbank, he couldn’t pull his foot out of the mud. 

A deafening _crack_ sounded from his right, and the boys watched in fear as a stroke of lightning knocked down a tree. In slow motion, that tree fell into the dam of an adjacent village, and before they could think of what to do, a giant wave of water was rushing toward them. 

_“You have to leave me!”_ the dark haired boy screamed, tossing his bucket. _“You can’t stay here!”_

_“I’m not leaving you!”_ the other boy yelled back, his golden eyes wild and frantic as he tried to pull his friend out of the mud. The boy with the blue eyes grabbed his friend’s hand and forced him to let go, putting his other hand on his cheek. 

Their eyes met, and just loud enough to hear over the roar of chaos around them, the boy spoke. 

_“It’s okay. This is how it has to be. I’m not angry with you. I need you to run. I love you.”_

The water was a few meters away by this point, so the golden-eyed boy turned to run up the hill. His doomed friend watched, and once he saw he was safe, he closed his eyes and let himself be swept away. 

That image slips into another, and then another, each one a picture of a boy being watched over by his best friend from a past life. Bokuto recognizes events that happened to him, like the crosswalk and the tsunami, and then the memories catch up to the present. 

Whatever took hold of his brain lets go, and Bokuto stumbles a step back as a hand flies to his head. His vision is foggy, but he straightens and focuses on the man in front of him instantly. 

“Keiji?” he asks, and the angel stiffens.

 _He never thought he’d hear that voice say his name again._

“It’s me.” 

A tear slides down Bokuto’s cheek, and he covers the space Akaashi created between them. Pushing through the warmth, Bokuto stands in front of Akaashi and falls to his knees.

The ground is hard and cold, dead grass poking him through his pants, but all Bokuto feels is sadness. This was his best friend; the boy he had an intense love for many lifetimes ago, the boy who had to watch him live again and again without him while he would never get to live again himself. 

“I’m sorry,” Bokuto cries, mourning the life that should have been. 

“It was never your fault.” 

Bokuto looks up at that, his starry eyes glittering with tears and the reflections of lanterns. Akaashi stares down at him, his angelic aura profoundly radiant. He drops to his knees in front of Bokuto, folding his hands in his lap as if to keep them from reaching out. 

“I’ve loved my time being your protector,” Akaashi says, tilting his chin down. For the first time, his hands shake from where they’re clasped on his legs. 

“They’re never going to let me see you again, after what I just did.” 

Bokuto sits there, eyes attempting to meet his guardian’s, his heart beating too quickly and his mind lagging too far behind and his skin too hot. 

“W...what?” Bokuto says, his hand grasping his knee hard enough to pop his fingers. 

“I love you,” Akaashi says, lifting his head and raising a hand toward Bokuto’s cheek, only to drop it to his side. “I’ve felt this way for a long time. It’ll never change.” 

“But…what are you saying?” Bokuto whispers, cold tears dropping from his eyelashes. 

“We’ll see each other again. It’s only a matter of when.” 

“But I just got you back. You can’t leave me again.”

“It’s not my decision, Bokuto.” 

The way his name falls off the lips of the angel, the tender voice and the years of hidden love creating a melody, gives Bokuto goosebumps despite the sweat on his neck. 

“Say my name again,” he whispers, leaning toward the comforting presence of the man he’s known his whole life but has only just now met. 

Akaashi smiles sadly, his jade colored eyes turned black with silent devastation and grief. Bokuto notices the edges of his appearance cloud and begin to fade, and his heart feels like it’s being ripped from his chest. 

“I love you, Koutarou,” he says, his voice faint as his heavenly aura dulls. “Never forget that.” 

And then he’s gone.

All words escape Bokuto’s brain. He’s completely and utterly speechless in the wake of his angel’s disappearance, and the only thought he can comprehend is _when did it get so cold?_

Bokuto scrambles to his feet, searching the area around him. He even looks up at the cloud-covered sky, but there’s no one there. 

A small fluff of white snow drifts down from the sky, and it lands softly on Bokuto’s coat sleeve. He studies it, allowing himself to be distracted as he watches the snowflake melt. 

Eerily calm, Bokuto takes a few slow steps to the bench and sits down, goosebumps stinging his legs as he sits on the cold metal. He winces, and as his heartbeat calms, he allows himself to think. 

Maybe, if he simply waits, Keiji will come back. Yeah, it makes sense. It’s cold enough where Bokuto could be in real danger if he waits long, so he’ll come back to save him. 

_Right?_

The warmth and comfort that Bokuto has felt all his life is gone, and that realization is like a punch to the gut. He feels exposed, like someone’s about to jump out at him in any second. Besides the paranoia, Bokuto is also cold. 

Really, _really_ cold. 

He sits on the bench as the clouds pass slowly overhead, his legs pulled into his chest and tears falling quietly down his cheeks. He shivers uncontrollably, his body not used to cold this harsh; with the warmth Keiji’s presence brought him throughout his life, Bokuto guesses that he’s never felt _real_ cold before anyways. 

In Bokuto’s state, he can’t tell if it’s been hours or seconds that he’s been sitting here. After the memories of many past lifetimes being forced into his head and the center of all those memories leaving immediately after, Bokuto’s body is in shock. His mind is blank and his body is stiff, and he doesn’t know what else to do but wait. 

He sits as every light around him turns out and the falling snow finds a steady rhythm. Piles of soft white flurries form on and beside him, and Bokuto’s teeth clack together loudly as he shivers. 

His skin burns, but in a completely different way from how Keiji made him feel. When he was in the proximity of his angel, he was warm with love and light. Now, though, his skin is hot due to the extreme cold that he shouldn’t be sitting through.

His eyelids flutter closed softly, and Bokuto opens them again when he realizes how tired he is. He has to wait for Akaashi to come back and tell Bokuto it was all a joke, and that there are no rules keeping them apart, but he knows somewhere deep down that it’ll never happen. 

He needs to stay awake. He needs Keiji to save him and give him energy to walk home. He needs to sleep so badly.

His eyes are _so_ heavy. 

Bokuto doesn’t register his vision switching from black to light. One second, it was the numbness of cold and darkness as far as he could see, then suddenly, it’s blindingly bright.

He’s sitting on a hard tile floor in the same position he had been on the bench, and he perks his head up to look around him. 

He sits in the center of a huge room. The room has no doors or windows, and it’s devoid of anything else. Everything is white, from the walls to the floor, and Bokuto’s eyes go wide as an important thought pops into his mind. 

_Oh no._

He stands, and his body is no longer cold. 

Someone appears out of thin air a few feet away, and Bokuto remembers the no doors fact. He looks up, his eyes immediately recognizing the black curls and blue green eyes of the man. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” Keiji says, his voice stern as he immediately makes his way to Bokuto. 

“Is this…did I die?” Bokuto asks, eyes wide and heart aflame. 

“You shouldn’t _be_ here,” Keiji repeats, and when he’s a mere few feet away, Bokuto can see the tears welling in his eyes. 

Bokuto’s skin isn’t burning from their proximity. 

“I found you,” Bokuto says, stepping forward after his realization. Proving his theory, his skin doesn’t feel any sweltering heat. 

“You have to go back,” Keiji says, his look frantic and his hands clenched into fists. “It’s not your time.” 

“I can’t. Not without you.” 

Keiji shakes his head, his teeth clenching so hard that his jaw pops when he releases it. His eyes switch between Bokuto’s, trying to make him understand how dire this situation is. 

Keiji finds no words of explanation and none of conviction, so he sighs as he approaches the man in front of him. Bokuto’s eyes widen as Keiji doesn’t stop until they’re inches away. 

Boldly, despite his fear, Bokuto lifts a hand to his guardian’s cheek. His hand shakes, but he pushes forward and finally touches Keiji’s skin. It’s warm; so warm, but not quite hot. The angel shivers despite the heat of the room and his own body, and Bokuto’s fingers caress his soft cheek. 

Keiji’s eyes drift to Bokuto’s, his face relaxed and eyes watery and lips parted. They stare for a second, another tear sliding from Keiji’s long, dark eyelashes, and tentatively, he raises his hands to Bokuto’s face. When their skin collides, the angel sighs, as if he’s been waiting hundreds of years to touch him again. 

Their eyes meet, and a fire rages between them. A fire that’s grown and festered through many lifetimes, and they’re only just now feeling the heat. 

Keiji’s words of pacification die in his throat, and he pulls Bokuto’s lips to his after years and years of waiting.

Their lips touch, and the fire roars. 

Keiji dreamed of this moment throughout his years of watching over Bokuto. He’s had to sit through Bokuto’s love for different people in each and every life he lived, and it _hurt._ Every kiss, every marriage, every long and sweet life Bokuto and his lovers lived together has made Keiji’s heart crack, little by little; and now, it’s finally mending itself back into one piece. 

It feels the same way it did when they were together, in their small village hundreds of years ago. Back then, they were a small fire that got snuffed out too quickly. And now, they’re one star going supernova, the love and passion between them too great to be anything else. 

Keiji doesn’t care who’s watching, he doesn’t care that this is only once, he doesn’t care about anything other than his lips against his star’s.

He wishes it could last forever. 

“You have to go back,” Keiji whispers, his breath fanning out in the small space between them.

“I can’t live without you,” Bokuto murmurs in response, squeezing his eyes shut. His hand pulls Keiji’s neck toward him, leaning their foreheads together. 

“You've done it before,” Akaashi says, forcing himself to pull back a few inches. He brushes his hand through Bokuto’s silky hair until he can see the sparkling gold of his irises, and he smiles—though smiling is the last thing he wants to do.

With their eyes connected, a collision between the sun and the sea, Akaashi whispers, “I promise, this isn’t the end.”

Bokuto pulls his hand away from Akaashi’s cheek and stares at it, and Akaashi doesn’t have to look in order to know that he’s fading. 

“What’s-“ Bokuto starts, his eyes widening as his mind catches up with him. He’s going back. 

“I love you, Koutarou. I’ll always be with you.”

Tears slide down Bokuto’s cheeks, his eyes puffy as he looks up from his disappearing hand to his angel. He knows there’s no way to fight it, so the only option he has is to accept fate and make the most of these few seconds. 

“I love you, too, Keiji,” he whispers, reaching for Akaashi’s hand with the one that’s still intact. Their fingers entwine, Bokuto’s rough from volleyball and human life while Akaashi’s are smooth and lean. “Don’t forget me.” 

“Never,” Keiji promises, just as Bokuto’s smile fades away. 

Once he’s alone, he lets his heartbreak out. 

—

Bokuto awakes with a start. He blinks, the room too bright for his eyes to register. There’s a ringing in his ears, and it takes a second for him to realize that’s the beeping of a machine. 

He looks around, and confusion fogs over his thoughts. 

“Koutarou!” Bokuto’s mother exclaims from the chair next to him, standing and throwing her arms around her son. In a daze, Bokuto hugs her back, his eyebrows furrowing. 

Konoha walks through the doorway then and stops when his gaze lands on his teammate, his eyes relieved but his expression jesting.

“Why am I here?” Bokuto asks, looking around the small hospital room where he sits. There’s an IV in his arm and two blankets on his lap, and he has no idea why he’s here. 

“I told you not to stay out too late, and that you could freeze to death!” Konoha scolds, wincing at the bluntness of his past words. He hands the water bottle in his grasp to Bokuto’s mom as he takes the seat next to her. 

“But…I don’t…” Bokuto mutters, rubbing his eyes with his hands. He tries to remember the last thing that happened to him, but his mind comes up blank. 

“Someone found you huddled up on a bench at the shrine you went to in the middle of the night,” Bokuto’s mom says, reaching for her son’s hand and holding it tightly. “How could you be so reckless, Kou?” 

A feeling nags at Bokuto’s heart, almost taunting him to chase after it so he can remember. He feels empty, for some reason, and he still can’t think of _why_ he was out so late in the freezing cold weather in the first place. 

“I’m sorry, mom,” he says, giving his mom a reassuring smile. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” 

“It’s alright,” she says, pulling him into a hug. “I love you, Koutarou.” 

“I love you, too,” Bokuto says, and the name at the tip of his tongue is a name he’s never heard before. 

So why does he almost say Keiji, and why does that name feel so familiar?


	3. Hold Tight for Everyday Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me a day, but it took far too long for me to get the motivation to finish this. I hope its a good epilogue, and this brings closure to the fic. 
> 
> thank you for reading!!

Bokuto was never able to remember what happened at the shrine. 

He tried, _so hard,_ to remember anything from that night, but it was like someone meticulously reached into his head and plucked that entire day from his memories. It was hard on him, the continuous questioning of what he remembered doing from the nurses and doctors, because that answer was always a never-changing “nothing.”

Weeks passed, and he started to let go of the whole “memory-loss” experience, his anger at himself for not remembering lessening until it was no longer there. Weeks turned into months, then years, and soon enough he couldn’t even remember the events of that part of his life, much less one specific night. 

Though the night never came back to him like the doctors said was possible, Bokuto still felt a hole in his heart from what must have transpired. He felt empty, more so for the weeks directly after, until it shifted into a soft ache he could never seem to make go away. 

For his whole life, Bokuto felt that soreness in his heart. It was almost like a separate being inside of him, dormant until, for some reason, he gained feelings for someone. 

Bokuto confessed his feelings to a girl when he was nineteen, and to his excitement, she reciprocated them. After that, whenever he was near her the pain in his chest would burn so harshly that he’d excuse himself and head home. _It’s just heartburn,_ he told himself the first time; but four times later, when she started to realize something was up, she broke it off, claiming that he should have just told her he didn’t like her instead of acting like an asshole. 

When he was twenty-three, he hooked up with a guy he was friends with. Even though there were no feelings involved—at least on the end of his friend—the throbbing of his entire body forced him to pause, and to his regret, it never resumed. He never saw that friend again. 

This happened three more times before Bokuto realized _something_ was holding him back from being in love. Only romantic love, not familial or friendship love, which meant that though he wanted a significant other, he had to settle for friendship and family. 

Of course he loved his family and friends, more than anything else in the world; but there were times, sitting alone in his quiet house or staring at the clock at work, that he wished there was someone to come home to other than loneliness. 

Though Bokuto’s life was an enjoyable and long-lived one, everyone has a time that runs out. For his last five years, his life was lived in a retirement home due to his development of Alzheimer’s. It started with his past memories fading from color to gray, and suddenly, to nothing. That was when they discovered it, and with no one to take care of him, he was moved to a care facility. 

Five years later, he passed in his sleep in the dead of a cold winter night. 

Bokuto awoke suddenly on the floor of a brightly lit, all white room. He lied on his back atop cool, smooth tiles, and after blinking the fogginess of sleep and an empty brain out of his vision, he sat up. 

Sitting up was easy, and it surprised Bokuto how easy the usually hard movement was. And once he realized that he could _process_ that thought, his mind began to race. Bokuto stood, rising to his feet with a grace he hadn’t possessed in decades, and he turned his head to assess the room and it’s contents hungrily. All white, with no windows or doors.

His eyes caught on a mirror hung seamlessly on the wall to his right, and he froze as he recognized the person reflected back to him. Taking a step toward the glass, he saw the poorly dyed, bicolored hair of his younger years and his golden eyes sparkling with new life. A calm smile grew across his lips as he took in the sight of his restored youth and processed the fact of his predicament. 

Bokuto felt the presence of someone behind him before he saw them in the mirror. His eyes trailed away from the smooth features of his own face to the man standing behind him, and it took a second for Bokuto’s mind to catch up with him.

The burning feeling he felt years past returned in milliseconds, but thousands of times more intensely than he remembered. His body turned before he could register his own movement, and once he met the blue-green eyes of the man with the black curls and the white clothes, it all came back to him. _Everything_ came back to him. 

_A warm presence that saved his life countless times when he was a child. A man, standing without shivering in the falling snow. Centuries of memories that were his own, and yet also not. Death. A white room, no doors, and a kiss that could burn through hell._

The pain thrumming under his skin subsided as his mind became clear. It suddenly made sense, being unable to fall in love. The love his soul sought for was somewhere he couldn’t reach, waiting for him patiently. 

_“Keiji,”_ Bokuto said, his younger voice foreign as it escaped his throat in the form of a whisper. A tear slipped down his cheek. 

“Koutarou,” Akaashi said, his voice cracking with emotion. 

The two stared at each other longingly before Bokuto took a slow step forward, still unused to his increased mobility. He didn’t have to move further than that, though, because Keiji wasted no time in taking his soulmate into his arms and pressing their lips together. 

Simultaneous sighs released between them as their lips touched, and it radiated with passion, need, longing, loneliness, _love._ Tears streamed down their faces, dropping between them as Bokuto grabbed his angel’s cheeks and pulled his mouth harshly into his own. Keiji’s hands were firm as they slid around Bokuto’s neck and into his hair, leaving no unwanted space between their bodies ablaze.

Bokuto pulled away, his mind too slow to comprehend everything at once. Reluctantly, Akaashi let him, though not letting him get too far.

He blinked, his gaze focusing on the eyes of the sea, alight with the joy that Bokuto felt. Those beautiful eyes grounded him, and he couldn’t help pressing their lips together in a chaste, but no less fiery, kiss. 

_“I found you,”_ Koutarou whispers, repeating the words of a moment previously forgotten. 

“You found me,” Keiji repeated, resting his forehead on the one of the man he loved through lifetimes. “And I’m never letting you go again.”


End file.
